Forging the Darksword
by Millennium Slinky
Summary: A oneshot focusing on the Darksword, the man who forged it, and its wielder. It involves more effort on the part of the smith than you know, really. Beware weirdness.


Many thanks to those who reviewed **Flat (AKA Strange Ponderings of a Blue-Haired Lemurian)**.  Here is a prequel of sorts, focusing on the Darksword (an item forged from Dark Matter, and the best sword in the game), and the man who made it (Sunshine, from Yallam).  (Come on, you don't think you get an awesome and _cursed_ item like that from just whacking it with a hammer a couple of times? :P)  Beware strangeness.  This is the third in a line of utterly weird/insane one-shots.  Please read **Flat** after this if you haven't, just to see the effect the Darksword had on a certain Lemurian's brain.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present **Forging the Darksword**.

* * * * *

"We'll be back in Yallam in two days, then," said the tall young man with the long brown hair.  "I hope you'll create just as much a wonder as you always do," he added, dark eyes merry for once instead of somber.

The four travelers walked without any backwards glances out the door.  As soon as they disappeared below the rise of the hill, Sarra slammed it shut again.  "You'd better get to work, Sunshine," she snapped.  "The Elements know what they'll be expecting!  What on earth can they think you're going to do with that - that thing?!?"  She gestured angrily at the twisted mass of black and red metal that her husband still held gingerly in his hands.

"What indeed," he agreed, then set it down on the anvil and stared at it.  "I don't even have _one_ crazy plan..."

"I can help, Pa," chirped Joda, bounding over from his usual spot by the fireside.  "With ideas.  I know I'm still too young to help with the forging, but I know what you can make!"

Sunshine laughed at his son's eagerness.  "And your great scheme is...?"

"Well, you've made an awful lot of shields, Pa, and plenty of armor, and Venus knows how many helmets..."  Joda's eyes were alight with excitement.  "But a _sword_, Pa, like no one's ever seen before!"

"I still don't know if this material can take it," Sunshine said doubtfully.  He tapped it with one finger, then shrugged when it didn't try to close around his hand and suck him in.  "It doesn't seem to be normal metal."

"Of course not!" chided Sarra.  "Those hooligans probably chipped it off the side of a mountain on the other end of the world!"  She sighed loudly.  "I guess I'd better start dinner."

Sunshine watched his wife disappear into the kitchen, then turned back to Joda.  "I'll sleep on that tonight.  Who knows?  Maybe it's strong enough.  "If I work all day tomorrow, I can probably make a good sword by sundown."

Joda whooped.  "I know it'll be great, Pa!  Your best creation yet!"

Sunshine somehow found the strength to smile.  Perhaps it would be.

* * * * *

That night he couldn't sleep at all.  Sarra, beside him, had been out like a light the moment her head touched the pillow.  Joda was probably dreaming peacefully as was usual in his own bed in the next room.

He couldn't keep his eyes closed for even a few seconds.  They'd keep on snapping open of their own accord, then be caught by a stirring of shadow in the corner of the room.  the normally calm southern wind was howling outside, rattling the panes of the windows.  He could hear voices, murmuring softly, but knew that he was the only person in all of Yallam who lay awake at this hour.

His mind kept returning to the twisted hunk of metal that he'd left in plain sight on the anvil.  Something about it suddenly seemed...wrong.  He didn't want to touch it or make it into something different.  He just wanted it to be far, far away from himself.

He swung his legs silently over the side of the bed and walked slowly towards the door to the forge.  He groped blindly for the handle...turned it.  The door swung back.  Out, out into the forge room.  He couldn't see it, but he knew the precise location of the anvil even in the dark.  He reached for the grease-stained cloth he knew he'd left right next to his array of tools, then quickly dropped it over the anvil and the lump of black and red that was perched on top.

There.  He was safe now.

* * * * *

The next morning all three were in much better moods.  Sarra hummed as she prepared breakfast, and Joda actually helped her with the dishes for once.  Sunshine did his best to act as his name said he should, though in the back of his mind he was still dreading having to touch the dark metal again.

"So," said Joda, clearing his father's crumb-adorned plate away - he had only picked at his food - "Do you know what kind of sword you'll make yet?"

"A...longsword," Sunshine said slowly, as the image of a black blade shot through with veins of red engulfed his vision, then disappeared just as quickly.  "With...an edge...the match of which no warrior has ever seen before."  He could hear Joda stack the dish with the others and dump Sunshine's cup in the basin - Sarra would get water from the well later and wash them.

Joda returned, grin nearly splitting his face in two.  "Come on, Pa!  I want to watch!"

"All right, all right," the blacksmith grumbled as he got up from the table.  "Just let an old man take his time, would you?"

Joda giggled and followed him into the forge.

* * * * *

It was still there.

Well, not that he hadn't expected it to be.  But it was just as he had left it last night, covered by the gray-smeared rag.  He yanked the cloth off to make sure his eyes weren't deceiving him.

"Something wrong, Pa?"

"Huh?  ...ah, no," Sunshine said quickly.  "Just thinking."  He laid a hand casually upon the black and red material - and something strange happened.

The colors began to swirl, and the twisted matter began to contort into an even more fantastic shape.  The entire room was drenched in a crimson light - 

No.  Not light.  It was oozing over his hands, dripping down his face and into his eyes.

Blood.

"Pa?  Pa!?"  Joda was shaking him.  "Pa, please get up!"

"Joda..."  His voice was strained.  "Joda, go help your mother wash the dishes."

"But Pa - !"

"I said _go_!"

Joda disappeared.  A door slammed.  The blood crept over him, covering his entire body...he couldn't breathe...his vision was soaked in red...and then he wasn't in his body any more.  He was standing beside...himself.  And his body was moving, assembling bellows and hammer and tongs, lighting the forge.  Lastly, he saw his own hands clench around the twisted material and bring it to the anvil.

How was this _happening_?

The familiar sound of hammering rent the air.  Beneath the hands of Yallam's blacksmith, the mass of darkness was flattened and shaped into a long, thin blade.  He couldn't tell for how many hours his body, possessed by some demon, worked - only that it was after dusk that the ringing of metal upon metal stopped, and the strangely dark weapon was dipped for the last time into the bucket of water next to the anvil.  The fire was doused, the hammer and tongs put away.

The room was plunged into darkness.

* * * * *

"Pa!  Pa!"  Joda's voice, broken by panting, cut through the black.  "They'll be up the hill in a few minutes!  I saw them go into the herb shop!"

"Who?" Sunshine said groggily.  He felt drunk, head pounding - but he was back in his body.  That was a plus.

"The four travelers!  The blonde girl and the one with pink hair, and the weird blue-haired guy and the tall one!"  He shook his father gently.  "You know, the one's you made the sword for!"  He paused, eyes suddenly anxious.  "You _did_ finish it, Pa?"

"Y-yes."  He stood up unsteadily - he'd been collapsed by the table that held his tools.  His gaze was drawn to his creation, lying innocently across the anvil.  It was a very beautiful weapon, he admitted to himself, yet it seemed so utterly revolting.  He was drawn to pick it up and twirl it experimentally.  The blade whistled as it cut through the air.  He tested the edge on his finger and stared in shock as the skin parted neatly, blood beginning to ooze out.  "So sharp..." he murmured.

"Come on," Joda urged, as they both heard a resounding knock on the door.  He held the sword carefully in both hands, walking resolutely towards the door which Joda was holding open for him.

The four travelers were assembled by the front door, whispering amongst themselves.  They all looked up when the blacksmith entered the room, eyes expectant.  He wordlessly held out the sword.

The leader raised an elegant eyebrow, then fingered the golden hilt of his sword, one that was obviously different from the plain one he'd had two days ago.  "That's your new marvel?"

Something inside Sunshine snapped.  "Care to test the edge yourself?" he shot back, holding up his still-bloody hand.

"You take it," the young man said to his blue-haired companion.  "You needed a new sword anyway.  How much?"

Sarra intervened at that point.  "Ninety thousand gold," she said firmly, as the young man's eyebrows rose higher.  "No less.  It's a good blade.  You'll never see one like it again."

The pink-haired girl rolled her eyes at the leader.  "Pay up, Felix."

He muttered something under his breath, but produced the coins from a bag hanging from his belt and handed them wordlessly over.

Sarra counted twice, obviously not trusting these young brigands any more than she trusted a pack of rats.  She slipped the coins into the pocket of her apron for safekeeping, then disappeared back into their bedroom to hide them underneath the mattress with the rest of the small fortune they'd been accumulating from selling unique items.

Sunshine proffered the sword, still not able to find the courage to speak.  The blue-haired young man stepped forward and took it by the hilt.

It happened again.

Blood, dripping from the blade.  Sunshine removed his hands quickly, leaving the blue-haired man with confusion in his eyes.  Somehow...somehow he couldn't see the blood pooling on the floor at his feet, defying gravity and winding up the arm attached to the hand holding the sword.

"It's cursed," he breathed, trying to uncurl his fingers from around the hilt.  But...now the blood was vanishing, shrinking away from the white light emanating from a plain ring on the man's hand.  He laughed and swung the sword through the air.  "Nice edge."  But there was a ghostly light in his odd golden eyes that hadn't been there before, a curl to his smile that spoke volumes.  Something about the sword and its new owner was wrong.

The blood began to drip again from the blade, rolling down it in red droplets past the hilt to his hands, staining them crimson.  There was a spattering of the same color on his boots and clothes, as the pool of blood widened, seeping into the cracks of the floor, lapping at the shoes of the other three.

The blonde girl gasped and stepped back quickly, eyes widening.

"Something wrong, Sheba?" said the leader, concern surfacing in his dark eyes.

"N-nothing," she whispered, eyes still tracking the progress of the liquid beginning to slowly cover the floor.  "Just...seeing something that wasn't there."

Sunshine couldn't rip his eyes from the man holding the sword - the Darksword, he suddenly knew.  That was its name.  But...

Suddenly the blood vanished...without any trace whatsoever.  There was a _snick_ as the blue-haired man slid it all the way into his scabbard.  "Shall we be going?"

He didn't know.  He couldn't see.  And there was nothing a blacksmith could do about it.


End file.
